This Vatican Information Service piece provides an overview of the Holy Father's general audience, given earlier today, which focuses on the Fatherhood of God. Noteworthy here is the reference to divine sonship"He has
blessed us and chosen us before the foundation of the world. He has
truly made us His children in Jesus"a theme that appears often in the writings in Benedict XVI but is not often mentioned.

Vatican
City, 30 January 2013
(VIS)  The first and most fundamental definition that the Creed
teaches us about God is that He is the Almighty Father. This was the
theme of Benedict XVI's Wednesday catechesis during today's general
audience that was held in the Paul VI Audience Hall.

"It
isn't always easy today to speak about fatherhood," the Pope
began, "...and, not having adequate role models, it even becomes
problematic to imagine God as a father. For those who have had the
experience of an overly authoritarian and inflexible father, or an
indifferent, uncaring, or even absent one, it is not easy to calmly
think of God as Father or to confidently surrender themselves to Him.
But Biblical revelation helps us to overcome these difficulties by
telling us about a God who shows us what it truly means to be a
'father'. Above all it is the Gospel that reveals to us this face of
God as Father, who loves us even to the point of giving us the gift
of His Son for the salvation of humanity."

In
the light of the Scriptures and the writings of the evangelists, the
Holy Father explained that God is our Father because "He has
blessed us and chosen us before the foundation of the world. He has
truly made us His children in Jesus. And, as Father, God accompanies
our existence with love, giving us His Word, His teaching, His grace,
His Spirit. ...If He is so good as to 'make His sun rise on the bad
and the good and … rain to fall on the just and the unjust', then
we can always, without fear and in complete faith, entrust ourselves
to His forgiveness as Father when we choose the wrong path."

Tracing
the history of salvation, Psalm 136 repeats "for his mercy
endures forever", and the pontiff emphasized, "The love of
God the Father never fails, never tires of us. … Faith gives us
this certainty that becomes the sure rock upon which to build our
lives. We can face every difficulty and every danger, the experience
of the darkness of times of crisis and pain, sustained by the
confidence that God does not abandon us and is always near to save us
and bring us to everlasting life."

The
kind face of the Father who is in heaven is fully shown in the Lord
Jesus. "Knowing Him we know the Father and seeing Him we can see
the Father. … Faith in God the Father requires that we believe in
the Son, through the action of the Spirit, recognizing the Cross that
saves as the definitive revelation of divine love. God is our Father,
forgiving our sins and bringing us to the joy of the risen life."

"We
can ask ourselves, how is it possible to imagine an all-powerful God
by looking at the Cross of Christ? … We would certainly like a
divine omnipotence that corresponded to our thoughts and our desires;
an 'almighty' God … who vanquishes our adversaries, who changes the
course of events, and who takes away our pain. … Faced with evil
and suffering, ... it is difficult for many of us to believe in God
the Father and to believe that He is all-powerful."

"Faith
in God the Almighty, however, leads us to follow very different
paths: learning to understand that God's thoughts and God's paths are
different from ours and that even His omnipotence is different―it
isn't expressed with mechanical or arbitrary force... Actually, God,
in creating free creatures, in giving us freedom, gave up a part of
His power, allowing us the power of our freedom. Thus He loves and
respects love's free response to His call. His omnipotence isn't
expressed in violence or destruction but rather through love, mercy,
and forgiveness; through His tireless call to a change of heart,
through an attitude that is only weak in appearance, and which is
made of patience, clemency, and love."

"Only
the truly powerful can endure evil and show compassion. Only the
truly powerful can fully exercise the power of love. And God, to whom
all things belong because He made them all, reveals His strength by
loving everything and everyone, patiently awaiting our conversion
because He wants us as His children. ...The omnipotence of love isn't
a worldly power, but is that of total gift and Jesus, the Son of God,
reveals to the world the Father's true omnipotence by giving His life
for us sinners. This is the true ... divine power: responding to evil
not with evil but with good, responding to murderous hatred with a
love that gives life. Evil is thus truly vanquished, because it is
washed by God's love. Death is thus definitively defeated, because it
is transformed into the gift of life. God the Father resurrects His
Son. Death, the great enemy, is swallowed up and deprived of its
sting and we are freed from sin; we can grasp our reality as children
of God."

"So,
when we say 'I believe in God, the Father Almighty', we express our
faith in the power of God's love who―in His Son who died and rose
again―conquers hate, evil, and sin and gives us eternal life, a
life as children who desire to remain forever in the 'Father's
House'."

Carl E. Olson is editor of Catholic World Report and Ignatius Insight.

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